Elon Musk made a dumb announcement about Twitter today, literally.
While things change, and other things cause confusion, and people complain about new things that are not necessary, the new face of the bird app, one Elon Musk, made it clear that Twitter users need to get used to it, tweeting, “Twitter will do a lot of dumb things in the coming months.”
The specific “dumb thing” that may have inspired Elon’s post is the change made to the verification checkmark. Musk had said those who want to be verified will have to pay $8 a month, but others pointed out that this would result in a double checkmark. Musk has now eliminated the second checkmark, which was obviously unnecessary.
To Musk’s credit, he seems to listen and commit to making things better. However, he also has banned users for making fun of him, despite claiming humor will be allowed. He also banned users who imitated him without making it clear that they were parody accounts, only to say that, moving forward, users will have to specify if theirs is a parody account. However, this rule was implemented only after the users in question were already banned.
While hosting a Twitter space just moments ago, Musk was asked about those “dumb things” he tweeted about, and whether he meant that mistakes would happen more frequently than usual due to the pace of change.
Musk answered, “We’re not aspirationally dumb. We’re aspirationally, you know, not dumb.”
He went on to to explain that Twitter needs to take big leaps, which incurs risk of “dumb things,” but that said “dumb things” can then be corrected quickly.
He noted, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If we do not try bold moves, how will we make great improvements? We’re not always gonna knock the ball out of the park but when we make a down move we correct it quickly and that’s what really matters.”
It’s worth noting that making so many changes so quickly can result in mistakes that have more of a long-term negative effect. Musk also jokingly (?) called himself “nuts,” so that helps one understand his crazy approach.
One managerial axiom holds that that the difference between a great manager and a great leader is that great managers solve problems, while great leaders prevent problems from happening. Twitter seems committed to accepting the problems that arise, rather than preventing unnecessary problems that they will undoubtedly create. Nonetheless, Musk’s overall success suggests that his methods may ultimately prove useful to the Twitter-verse.
One thing is for certain, a lot of problems that have already arisen could have been avoided with a moment’s pause. One can assume that more “dumb things” will happen, and that many will later prove to have been avoidable. Despite all of this, however, Musk claims that Twitter usage is at an all-time high — but increased popularity comes with its own set of problems so get ready, Twitter users, for some upcoming “dumb things” that hopefully won’t deter your personal experience.
